"You are a fearless warrior who's more than his past." "Of course you've the intelligence to learn how to read! Who the devil convinced you otherwise?" "You are stronger and faster than the others, your will to live greater than any I've known. You see details others are blind to. Uniqueness is a kind of nobility, is it not, brother?"

Throughout, Malkom had begun to shed the taint of his past. He'd dared to entertain dreams of a better life.

Now Kallen was dead. Malkom roared with impotent fury, his eyes going wet with loss. Kallen. Dead.

Or worse.

The sorcerer cast a layer of black dust over Kallen's body.

"No!" Malkom bit out. "Leave him in peace!"

More chanting, more power.

Malkom's lips parted. Kallen's body was lifeless no more. With each of the sorcerer's words, it began to twitch, to ... move in the dirt.

Not from death spasms. But writhing with life. The headless neck pumped blood anew.

The Viceroy again snapped his fingers for the demon slaves. Once the pair had kicked Kallen's body into the grave, the sorcerer scattered more of that dust over all. To make Kallen whole once more?

When smoke snaked up from the depths, the Viceroy raised his bloody sword. "Now 'tis your turn, Slaine. And I promise you, rising from the dead—if it takes—will be the easy part. If you live, I will break you."

Malkom silently prayed for a true end, beseeching the gods who had never once answered his most desperate entreaties. Please, do not let me rise—

The sword whistled through the air. He perceived the scantest bite of blade.

Then nothing.

Despite Malkom's prayers, he and Kallen had both risen two nights later, waking into a nightmare of darkness, deep in the earth. After clawing through the dirt, inching their way to the surface, they'd been thrown in a murky cell in the Viceroy's dungeon.